Hello Greg,
I've just completed a study on visioning and developed a visioning
"toolkit" for my organisation. My findings:
1. Visions are generally set in one of two ways. One is for a
charismatic leader to develop and share a vision. Those who are attracted
to it join and help propogate it; those who don't, stay away. (This is
how Habitat for Humanity became so large.) The second is to gather a
group of people in order to FIND their common vision together. This is
more practical for organisations that already exist.
2. A critical aspect of having people buy into a vision is to attract
those with similar core values. If the underlying values are not in
synch, the vision will never match, either. If the vision is to make a
lot of money and some people don't care about becoming rich, the vision is
going to be meaningless to them. (I don't mean to imply that diversity or
differences of opinion are not good - there can be plenty of divergence
while still having people share certain common core values that they bring
to the organisation. As in the example above, lots of different kinds of
people are interested in getting rich.) During the recruitment process
(staff or volunteers), it's important to communicate what the
organisation's vision is, and allow the individual to consider whether
s/he shares common values and is motivated by the vision prior to joining
the organisation.
3. Visions will never "stick" unless the leadership continually
communicates it, emphasises it, and ensures that all actions, decisions,
etc. are in line with the shared vision. For example, strategic planning
should be centered either directly or indirectly around the question of
"How are we going to fulfill our vision?"
Hope those comments are helpful. I can give you leads on some resources
if you'd like.
Susan Maury
Planning & Evaluation Coordinator
Habitat for Humanity - Africa/Middle East
e-mail: Susan_Maury@habitat.org
or Maury@fan.com
--"Susan and Matthew Maury" <maury5@email.msn.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>